RESEARCH ARTICLE
Research Data Management and Libraries:Relationships, Activities, Drivers andInfluencesStephen Pinfield*, Andrew M. Cox, Jen Smith
Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
Abstract
The management of research data is now a major challenge for research
organisations. Vast quantities of born-digital data are being produced in a wide
variety of forms at a rapid rate in universities. This paper analyses the contribution of
academic libraries to research data management (RDM) in the wider institutional
context. In particular it: examines the roles and relationships involved in RDM,
identifies the main components of an RDM programme, evaluates the major drivers
for RDM activities, and analyses the key factors influencing the shape of RDM
developments. The study is written from the perspective of library professionals,
analysing data from 26 semi-structured interviews of library staff from different UK
institutions. This is an early qualitative contribution to the topic complementing
existing quantitative and case study approaches. Results show that although libraries
are playing a significant role in RDM, there is uncertainty and variation in the
relationship with other stakeholders such as ITservices and research support offices.
Current emphases in RDM programmes are on developments of policies and
guidelines, with some early work on technology infrastructures and support services.
Drivers for developments include storage, security, quality, compliance, preservation,
and sharing with libraries associated most closely with the last three. The paper also
highlights a ‘jurisdictional’ driver in which libraries are claiming a role in this space. A
wide range of factors, including governance, resourcing and skills, are identified as
influencing ongoing developments. From the analysis, a model is constructed
designed to capture themain aspects of an institutional RDM programme. This model
helps to clarify the different issues involved in RDM, identifying layers of activity,
multiple stakeholders and drivers, and a large number of factors influencing the
implementation of any initiative. Institutions may usefully benchmark their activities
against the data and model in order to inform ongoing RDM activity.
OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Pinfield S, Cox AM, SmithJ (2014) Research Data Management andLibraries: Relationships, Activities, Drivers andInfluences. PLoS ONE 9(12): e114734. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114734
Editor: Pascal Launois, World HealthOrganization, Switzerland
Received: May 28, 2014
Accepted: November 13, 2014
Published: December 8, 2014
Copyright: � 2014 Pinfield et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of theCreative Commons Attribution License, whichpermits unrestricted use, distribution, and repro-duction in any medium, provided the original authorand source are credited.
Data Availability: The authors confirm that, forapproved reasons, some access restrictions applyto the data underlying the findings. Data underlyingthis study cannot be made publicly available inorder to safeguard participant anonymity and thatof their organisations. Ethical approval for theproject was granted on the basis that only extractsof interviews would be shared (with appropriateanonymisation) as part of publications and otherresearch outputs. In order to share data with otherresearchers, the participants must be contactedand consent to this data release. Other research-ers will be able to request the dataset by contactingthe corresponding author or Chair of the Universityof Sheffield Information School Research EthicsCommittee ([email protected]).
Funding: The authors have no support or fundingto report.
Competing Interests: The authors have declaredthat no competing interests exist.
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0114734 December 8, 2014 1 / 28
Introduction
Data management is now a major challenge for research organisations. Vast
quantities of born-digital research data are now being produced in a wide variety
of forms and at a rapid rate in universities, creating the so-called ‘‘volume’’,
‘‘variety’’ and ‘‘velocity’’ challenges of data [1, 2]. This ‘‘data deluge’’ generates a
need to develop policies, infrastructures and services in institutions to manage
data, with the aim of assisting researchers in creating, collecting, manipulating,
analysing, transporting, storing and preserving datasets. In certain circumstances,
there may also be a need to share data either amongst specific groups or openly.
Despite its challenges, there is growing recognition that sharing data widely can
create benefits, including allowing the verification of research outcomes, enabling
contribution to wider data gathering scientific activities, and facilitating the reuse
of data by others for subsequent research [3, 4]. Research funders, conscious of the
need to encourage scientific good practice and to achieve greater value for the
research they sponsor, widely encourage – indeed, increasingly require – particular
standards of data management and sharing to be followed [5, 6]. Such
requirements serve to emphasise the need for effective research data management
within institutions.
As different approaches to research data management (RDM) are developing in
universities and other research organisations, different stakeholders have become
involved, including support services staff as well as Faculty themselves. University
libraries have moved into this space and are increasingly seen as major
contributors to RDM activity in general and in the design of research data services
(RDS) in particular [7–14]. The study presented here makes a contribution to the
ongoing discussion in the research and professional literature by reporting results
of qualitative research consisting of interviews of library professionals in UK
universities discussing their involvement in institutional RDM activity. It is
designed to provide an in-depth insight into the thinking of library staff involved
in RDM as they confront the wide range of challenges involved.
The paper begins with a brief overview of the research context, discussing in
particular the concept of RDM and the literature on librarians’ roles in it. It then
goes on to outline the objectives of the research undertaken and the research
methodology used. The results then presented provide perspectives on the
relationship between the library and other institutional stakeholders involved in
RDM, the sorts of RDM activities being carried out, the drivers for those activities,
and the main factors that influence their shape. From the data presented, a model
is constructed which attempts to capture the main aspects of an RDM programme
in an institution.
Research Context
Research data management is defined by Whyte and Tedds as, ‘‘the organisation
of data, from its entry to the research cycle through to the dissemination and
archiving of valuable results’’ [15]. As Cox and Pinfield observe, RDM ‘‘consists of
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a number of different activities and processes associated with the data lifecycle,
involving the design and creation of data, storage, security, preservation, retrieval,
sharing, and reuse, all taking into account technical capabilities, ethical
considerations, legal issues and governance frameworks’’ [8]. Such activities and
processes are needed for a wide variety of different forms of data ranging from
large-scale calculations derived from high-performance computing facilities,
through results of scientific experiments, to audio recordings of interviews. RDM
is therefore a highly complex set of activities involving an array of technical
challenges as well as a large number of cultural, managerial, legal and policy issues.
The library’s involvement in RDM has been discussed in the literature
particularly in the last 5 to 6 years. Early contributions, such as those by Delserone
[16], Henty [17] and Lewis [7], set out the case for library involvement. Later
works, such as Corrall [18] and Cox, Verbaan and Sen [19] further discuss the
range of possible roles. Lyon [20] identifies a number of opportunities for libraries
but also major challenges in developing the capacity and capabilities to carry out
RDM. Pryor [12] summarises these opportunities and challenges by talking about
‘‘the re-purposed librarian’’. Procter, Halfpenny and Voss [21] place the role of
the library in a wider institutional context, emphasising the need for libraries to
work in partnership with IT services and academic staff.
Further studies have attempted to gather empirical evidence of the extent of
actual library involvement in RDM. Tenopir and colleagues [10, 22, 23] report the
results of a large-scale study of US libraries’ involvement in research data services
design and implementation, showing activity in technical infrastructure devel-
opment as well as support and advisory services. Corrall, Kennan and Afzal [9]
report results from a survey of university libraries in Australia, New Zealand,
Ireland and the UK carried out in the first quarter of 2012, identifying widespread
early activity albeit constrained by knowledge and skills gaps. They assess early
work in these countries, particularly the UK, to be somewhat behind those of the
US. Cox and Pinfeld’s study [8] of UK libraries presents survey results from late
2012 showing progress in the UK, with policy development involving the library
in particular proceeding rapidly and a high strategic priority being given to some
RDM activities especially around training and advisory services.
Empirical studies such as these have, however, to date largely been quantitative
in their approach. Whilst they have identified a range of important developments,
they have perhaps also highlighted the need to gain a richer and more nuanced
picture of ongoing developments. The current paper goes some way to achieving
that by making an early qualitative contribution, to date an approach largely
absent from the literature. It complements work recently published by the authors
based on the same dataset focused specifically on analysing the challenges of RDM
within the framework of the ‘Wicked Problem’ concept (‘‘unique, complex
problems which are defined differently by different stakeholders making them
particularly intractable’’) [24]. The current study also follows on from
quantitative work by Cox and Pinfield [8], allowing issues identified there to be
explored in more depth.
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Complementing empirical studies, a number of researchers have generated
models of various aspects of Research Data Management. For example, Jones,
Pryor and Whyte delineate a ‘‘Components of RDM support services’’ model [25],
organised within a simple research life cycle framework (further discussed by
Jones [26]). There is an overarching ‘‘Policy, strategy and business case’’. Then
there are a number of components relating to different stages of research, namely:
support for data management planning; managing active data; data selection and
handover; sharing and preserving data (including data repositories and
catalogues). ‘‘Guidance, training and support’’ covers support services to
researchers throughout the process. The model gives detail about the types of
services that could be offered around RDM, and one of its strengths is its link to a
simple data lifecycle concept. It could be seen as a successor to the well-known
Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Lifecycle model, which is rather complex and
focuses more on data curation than on researcher support. Complementing the
Service component model, Whyte proposes a process by which services might be
brought into being, through a six-step pathway of envisioning, initiating,
discovering, designing, implementing and evaluating [27]. The author sets out the
tools that have been developed by the community to support each step of the
process. He acknowledges some of the challenges, particularly in the diversity of
research communities, but does not provide a detailed consideration of any
constraints on the service delivery side. Mayernik et al provide an outline of a
‘‘Data Conservancy’’ model of RDS based on work at Johns Hopkins University in
particular. This covers both technical components (such as software and
infrastructure) and organisational components (such as policies and funding
strategies) [28].
Good practice has also begun to emerge as institutions have set out to develop
RDS and have published lessons learned based on real-world experience.
Experiences in institutions such as Edinburgh [29] and Oxford [30] in the UK,
and Purdue [31] and Johns Hopkins [32] in the US, have highlighted some
important issues at institutional level. Differences in national approaches between
Australia and US have also been usefully explored [33]. However, even the
advanced institutions identified in these publications offer only hints of what a
fully developed RDS may look like. At the time the interviews reported in this
paper were carried out, many institutions were clearly only taking their first steps
towards finding a pathway.
The research had four main objectives designed to analyse the library’s
contribution to RDM within the wider institutional context:
1. To examine roles and relationships involved in RDM
2. To identify the main components of RDM programmes
3. To evaluate the main drivers for RDM activities
4. To analyse the key factors influencing the shape of RDM developments
In this way, the research was designed to yield a rich understanding of current
institution-wide RDM developments as contributed to and perceived by one of
the major stakeholder groups – the library.
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Methodology
The data presented here derives from 26 semi-structured interviews of library
practitioners from different institutions in the UK. These interviews were the
second phase of a project which began with an online survey of UK academic
libraries reported by Cox and Pinfield [8]. Respondents to the survey were asked
to volunteer to take part in detailed follow-up interviews as part of their
responses, and therefore interviewees represented a self-selected group of
practitioners, probably engaged with RDM to a greater degree than the
community as a whole (although a number of participants were only just
beginning to address RDM issues when interviewed). Participants came from a
number of different sorts of institutions (research-led and teaching-led
institutions, large universities and small institutes) and were either senior library
managers with a strategic overview or middle-level managers with direct
responsibility for RDM.
The approach adopted for the research was given approval under the University
of Sheffield Information School ethics approval process as overseen by the
University of Sheffield Research Ethics Committee. The University Research
Ethics Committee monitors the application and delivery of the University’s Ethics
Review Procedure across the University. The process as carried out was based on
the principles of voluntary contribution, informed consent and anonymised
reporting. Participants, who had volunteered to take part by providing their
contact details in the previous online survey reported by Cox and Pinfield [8],
were sent Information and Consent documents in advance of the interviews which
explained details of the research approach and their part in it. Participants were
given the opportunity to ask questions about these via email before the interviews
were scheduled. At the beginning of the formal telephone interviews, each
participant was given the opportunity to ask questions verbally regarding their
participation and asked to confirm their consent. Verbal consent was deemed
appropriate as interviews took the form of pre-arranged telephone conversations
with self-selecting volunteer participants. 25 of the interviews were conducted by
telephone, with one face-to-face, at the request of the particular participant.
The interviews covered three main areas: firstly, the current state of RDM
activity in the institution; secondly, the skills needed to carry out RDM services;
thirdly, the story of how RDM policy and services have developed in the
institution. Interviewees were encouraged to talk in detail about their experience
of the issues involved, including the library’s role in delivering RDM and in
developing RDM-related strategies and policies, with interviews lasting 40 min-
utes on average. Following piloting, interviews took place between March and
June 2013. Interviews were recorded and then fully transcribed for analysis.
The interview transcripts were analysed in NVivo following a thematic analysis
approach [34]. All three authors initially familiarised themselves with the data
with a thorough reading of the transcripts, involving memo writing. Initial codes
were then identified based on key features identified in the data, including
‘‘semantic content or latent’’ features [34]. Codes were applied to the transcripts
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in NVivo, and reviewed and refined on a number of occasions by the authors
following review. After initial coding of all of the transcripts, major themes were
identified from the data, with code structures refined and thematic maps
developed to reflect these. Codes and themes were reviewed and again refined
upon further analysis of the data. The data was then used to construct a model of
an RDM programme in the institution from a library perspective which was
designed to capture the key themes highlighted in the interviews (presented
below).
Results
The library and institutional RDM activities
All participants reported that the library was involved in institutional RDM
activities and expressed the view that the library should be. There were, however,
significant reported differences in the roles currently played by libraries and how
these related to other stakeholders. There were also differences in views on how
these roles and relationships should be developed. Some argued strongly for the
library taking a leadership role:
‘‘I think there are a number of areas where the library does have a distinctive role
to play here. I certainly don’t think libraries should be shrinking away from this
at all. Lots of opportunities for leadership.’’
Areas highlighted where the library could lead focused on the formulation of
policy and creation of guidance documentation (although this may reflect the fact
that for many those areas of development were currently priorities). Some
participants reported that the library had been tasked with leading the
development of a policy in response to the new requirements of the UK’s EPSRC
(Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) [5]. One respondent
reported that it was likely that the library would take a leadership role partly
because of the reluctance of other support services to do so:
‘‘…the feeling is that other than the library, most service areas aren’t really going
to want to, to tackle it, take a lead on it, and so talking to IT staff in the library,
there was a feeling that this is very much a library area…’’
Other interviewees reported an involvement with RDM but in a contributory
rather than a leadership role:
‘‘…we have contributed to [policy development] and commented on a document
and attended meetings and assisted…[the] research [office] who have been
leading on developing the policy.’’
Some participants saw the library as being in an ambiguous position and were
themselves uncertain about its role in RDM. Current work was seen as a way of
helping to resolve that uncertainty:
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‘‘This is one we are trying to figure out ourselves here, work out exactly what the
library’s role is.’’
There was sometimes disagreement even within individual library organisations
about whether in both the short and long-term the library should lead on RDM
issues. One participant highlighted some of the issues:
‘‘At the most senior level, the library needs to take a strategic decision how active
they want to be in pitching for data management because it’s there for the taking
if they want it, in many institutions. Or that it gets kicked in their direction
because there is no other obvious place for it to go, but what I would say from the
experience here, it has to be a cross-institution service. Now somebody needs to
own it, and I don’t know that the library is the right place to own the whole
shebang. I think the library has strengths that it will bring to certain areas of the
service and therefore absolutely should be involved in policy and can be a driving
force behind the policy, which I think in [this institution] it has been, in
conjunction with again our colleagues in IT who we work closely with.’’
In some cases, participants observed that various aspects of RDM were being
led by different players in the institution. However, the extent to which this was
planned and explicitly agreed, and the extent to which it was emergent and
implicitly accepted, varied. However, all interviewees agreed that a collaborative
approach to addressing challenges within the institution was essential.
‘‘Nobody can own this on their own. They are going to have to really appreciate
what those other partners’ roles might be and where their expertise is and where
that expertise needs to be drawn in and listened to.’’
The participants provided accounts of ongoing collaborative work involving
most commonly research support services and IT services. Other support
departments mentioned included legal advisory services and records management
services as well as senior academic staff. Whilst participants reported some
differences in perspectives with these groups and also some disagreements,
ongoing collaborative working was taken for granted. Work was often overseen by
an academic member of the institutional executive board, typically the Pro-Vice-
Chancellor or Vice President with responsibility for research (or equivalent), and
may also have involved other senior academic staff.
In some cases, the library was reported to have taken up a coordinating role
between the various support services staff and Faculty involved. One respondent
reported that the library was in a good position to take an ‘honest broker’ role:
‘‘I think we can be quite good at just bringing different people together…
Although [the library is] a central service, I think it’s often perceived as being
quite a neutral safe place… So you can actually bring together…[and] you can
facilitate those discussions in a way which isn’t very threatening… I think also we
have quite good relationships with our researchers, and we understand the nature
of their research perhaps a bit better, we come at it from a different angle, I think
perhaps than IT [services] might do.’’
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The picture of how libraries are involved in RDM therefore shows considerable
variability and at the time of the interviews was still in flux. RDM was seen as a
professional concern, but the degree of involvement of the library was uncertain.
This perspective was, of course, only a partial picture of the relationships within
institutional RDM activity. Other stakeholders who also have a vital role in
defining approaches, did not contribute directly to this research project and
therefore perhaps need to be covered in future research to create a rounded
picture.
Components of an institutional RDM programme and the library
Emerging from analysis of the narratives of RDM developments provided by
participants, a number of key components of an institutional RDM programme
can be identified. The term ‘programme’ is used here to describe the various
activities, such as policy development and technology implementation, that
together constitute concerted effort in a particular area (similar to the use by
Kennan [35] in relation to an institutional repository ‘‘program’’). The
programme components are:
N Strategies: defining the overarching vision for research data management
within the institution and how it relates to the institutional mission and
priorities, and outlining major developmental goals and principles which
inform activity.
N Policies: specifying how the strategies are to be operationalised through regular
procedures, including not just an RDM policy but also a set of complementary
policy frameworks covering issues such as intellectual property rights and
openness that may be relevant.
N Guidelines: providing detail on how the policies will be implemented often
written from the point of view of a particular user group (such as those within a
particular disciplinary area) and defining specific activities, and roles and
responsibilities.
N Processes: specifying and regulating activities within the research data life-cycle
including research data management planning for individual projects, data
processing, ingesting data into central systems, selecting data for preservation,
etc, and involving the use of standards and standardised procedures wherever
possible.
N Technologies: underpinning processes with technical implementations includ-
ing data repositories and networking infrastructures allowing for storage and
transport of data.
N Services: enabling end-user access to systems and providing support for
research data life-cycle activities (including supporting the creation of data
management plans, providing skills training, and delivering helpdesk services).
Of these, much current activity reported by participants clearly focused on the
development of an institutional RDM policy. Policy development was typically
sponsored in institutions by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for research and overseen by
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the institutional research committee. In many cases, a working group or task force
had been set up, often chaired by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (or nominee), and
consisting of senior representatives from support services (including the library,
IT services and research support services) and the academic community.
Commonly, this group had a formal reporting line to the research committee,
with ultimate responsibility for approval of the policy with that committee or
sometimes with the university executive board or senate.
Policies normally took the form of a set of high-level principles. In some cases,
they were developed relatively quickly, often drawing on existing good practice.
One participant described the process of, ‘‘looking at other people’s policies and
pulling the bits that we think are relevant to us’’. Policies were often explicitly seen
as working documents, developed iteratively and requiring ongoing revisions as a
result of consultation:
‘‘We…went through some drafts and iterated principles and gaps and concerns
that people had, in the policy until we reached a version that whilst we call final
because it’s gone through Senate, we have always said we consider it to be a policy
that will go back to Senate. We will take a year or two’s worth of feedback on the
policy and then probably another version might go back with some change…as we
go through trying to work out how we best support that policy.’’
Policy development was often explicitly seen as informing a wider set of
developments within the institution:
‘‘You want some framework, so you do need a policy, and a road map, and a
sense of where you are going. You do need that to inform longer term strategic
investment, particularly in key areas like storage, equipment, and staffing for
services. And you need something which outlines roles and responsibilities in
terms of research data management, and this has to in some way be endorsed
from the top.’’
There was, however, widespread agreement amongst participants that this ‘top-
down’ approach also needed to be combined with ‘bottom-up’ engagement:
‘‘I think you need some leadership from the top and they can set things running,
but unless you get people further down interested and engaged it’s not going to
work, just telling people to do it never seems to work in universities.’’
A number of participants described how the development of a policy was also
associated with some kind of audit or consultation process with the wider
academic community to gauge views, identify current activities and understand
expected requirements with regard to RDM. In some cases these exercises were
somewhat informal, consisting, for example, of a set of meetings with faculty
representatives:
‘‘At the moment like many other places we are doing a bit of requirement
checking, so we have got a series of interviews and meetings with different
departments looking at individual cases etc.’’
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In other cases, the institution had undertaken a more structured data audit
process. In a small number of cases, participants reported carrying out a formal
Data Audit Framework (DAF) exercise:
‘‘…there is a project which is actually currently doing a requirement analysis,
using a version of the DAF tool, to try and find out more about people’s
activities…we are trying to build an institutional picture, to develop a project
with multiple strands that will look at things like storage, long-term archiving,
preservation, training, support for data management planning, etc.’’
However, such a formal process was not the norm, and in many cases, the level
of engagement with a broad range of academic staff either in policy development
or other activities was up to then acknowledged to be limited. Some participants
commented on low levels of interest from academic staff with policy development
despite attempts to widen discussion through, for example, a survey:
‘‘Nobody in the survey commented on the policy, and nobody has been e-mailing
in commenting on the policy, and as I say when it went to the faculty research
and innovation committees, it went to every…one …before it went to Senate, and
the changes were really minor, so I think because it was such a high-level
document, people were just shrugging and like ‘‘Yes, whatever’’. Because it doesn’t
actually spell out in black and white terms what you have to do in practice, and
there is no notion of any consequence if you don’t do it.’’
In many cases, the involvement of academic staff was often now seen as a
priority particularly associated with the production of guidelines to support the
implementation of the policy – something that was seen as an emerging priority
for those institutions that had already developed a policy at least in draft form:
‘‘So then there is all the policy stuff which is pending just now, because we did
some drafts in May that were very light touch, and when we have finished our
machinations that we are doing just now and asking people, we will do an update
in the summer. And then we will update it again next summer…and then we will
have some…clearer process guidelines…’’
Guidelines or procedures documentation was being designed to spell out more
clearly the roles and responsibilities of different groups in the institution and
describe processes to be undertaken as part of RDM by them. Often the need for
further guidance was mentioned by participants in relation to specific issues, such
as intellectual property and copyright, or metadata production. Producing
guidance of this sort was seen by a number of participants as the next natural step
following the development of a high-level policy.
Significantly, many of the activities reported to be taking place in institutions
were concentrated at either policy or procedural level. Although its importance
was acknowledged, there was little discussion amongst participants about
overarching strategy for the institution and its link with the management of
research data. Whilst some policy documents may explicitly map RDM to existing
institutional strategy, engagement at this level was limited. This is somewhat
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surprising giving the formal involvement of senior university governance groups
in policy development and seems to be indicative of RDM being regarded as a
procedural rather than strategic issue in many institutions.
Current activities sometimes also involved use of small-scale projects to explore
issues and test approaches. A willingness to experiment was seen as important by
many participants, with one highlighting:
‘‘Flexibility and a willingness to learn new things, and to learn through trial and
error.’’
In a number of cases, these projects were explicitly seen as pilots of potential
future services. One participant described in detail the thinking behind such an
approach to ‘pathfinder’ activities, combined with policy creation, in terms of
future service development:
‘‘…we are starting from a relatively low base, and we are in the process of
building an integrated, coherent research data management service. This builds
on the work of a research data management working group that was set up
approximately 2 years ago…the group was set up to respond to the requirements
from funding councils for institutions to have a road map for research data
management and was looking at how that could be achieved within [the
institution]. The recommendation from that group was for a pilot project to test
what a research data management service would look like. Bringing together the
different… support services across the institution which are already involved in
research data. The working group also proposed a draft research data
management policy, so at the moment we are just about to start that pilot
project, to set up a research data management service to work with a few selected
researchers from across the institution to see how that process will work in
practice. So we are at an early stage, but the project is really to bring together the
existing activities across the institution and to develop them into a more coherent
service.’’
However well-developed such plans were, participants nevertheless often
adopted conservative views of what could realistically be achieved in the short
term, partly to manage expectations, partly out of realism.
Participants acknowledged that RDM required significant levels of technology
infrastructure development. Library involvement in this often focused on the
institutional repository. However, there was uncertainty about the extent to which
the library’s involvement in repository development was relevant for RDM
activities. Some participants were sceptical as to whether the repository services
run by the library could be scaled up to accommodate large datasets. Very often,
therefore, data storage and other technical infrastructure was identified as outside
the library remit, with IT services identified as leading in this area. Similarly, few
participants mentioned the issue of the development of standardised processes
and workflows making use of the technical infrastructure. Key issues associated
with managing the data life-cycle including setting up processes associated with
ingest of data, developing standards for creation of metadata, producing protocols
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for selecting data for preservation, whilst acknowledged to be important, tended
to be beyond the current thinking of most participants.
Apart from provision of systems, major services mentioned by participants
focused on training and advisory services, most of them in the early stages of
development. One interviewee described the delivery of a formalised data
management plan advisory service which was now in operation in the institution.
Other services discussed, but not widely delivered, included a data catalogue, and
data discovery services (for both internal and external data). These were seen as
areas of potential library involvement.
Thinking in this area and others often extended beyond the institution. All
participants were aware of good practice elsewhere, either in the UK or
internationally. Many were aware of developing international standards and
services. In some cases they actively collaborated with others outside their own
institution in projects or through sharing experiences in pre-existing interest
groups such as Research Libraries UK. They also valued the role played by
organisations such as Jisc and the DCC in highlighting good practice and
providing training.
In general, there was, however, a tone of provisionality running through the
comments of many of the participants in this research. This was highlighted in the
way a significant number of interviewees contextualised their responses with the
proviso that it was ‘‘early days’’. This was a commonly repeated sentiment in the
interviews and characterised a general uncertainty around the specifics of the
library’s role in RDM, even if the principle of the library being involved was
widely accepted. The participant described their activity as ‘‘feeling our way’’
seemed to be summarising the views of many. The emphasis on development of
an institutional policy and project work was seen as a way of establishing a
platform from which other components of RDM could develop. These other
components, including the creation of detailed guidelines, processes, technologies
and services were seen as important, but were often still nascent. Guidelines
development and early pilot services were, however, beginning to emerge as
significant areas of activity.
Drivers for institutional RDM and the library
A number of drivers for RDM developments were identified in the interviews as
being important at an institutional level:
1. Storage: the need to provide immediate storage facilities for a wide variety of
datasets at a scale which anticipates the future requirements of researchers
and in a way that represents value for money and is convenient to use.
2. Security: the requirement to ensure that data, particularly that which is
confidential or sensitive, should be held securely with relevant authentication
and authorisation mechanisms in place.
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3. Preservation: the need for medium and long-term archiving of data with
associated selection protocols and preservation activities along with a
supporting technical infrastructure.
4. Compliance: the need to comply with the requirements and policies of other
relevant agencies, particularly funders, as well as legal obligations, such as data
protection, and industry good practice.
5. Quality: the imperative to maintain and enhance the quality of research
activity in general in order to demonstrate the robustness of findings and
enable results verification and reproducibility (partly derived from but not
limited to the quality of research data itself).
6. Sharing: the need to share data amongst targeted users and also to provide
mechanisms and systems to enable open access to data where appropriate.
7. Jurisdiction: the development of a professional narrative around the need to
be involved in RDM and how this impacts upon other stakeholders in the
institution.
Drivers 1 to 6 were identified by the research team from previous work and
confirmed by participants in their responses. Driver 7 emerged from the
interviews, being implicit in many of the comments of participants (although the
word ‘jurisdiction’ itself was not used). Participants made some interesting
comments on the role of the library in particular and the institution in general
responding to these drivers.
Participants agreed that the storage of data was a very high institutional priority
and a major driver for RDM activity:
‘‘I think storage is a big issue. So in terms of difficulty of solving this in an
affordable way, I would put storage as number 1…I think the storage comes first
in terms of you solve that and some of the other things are…part of that.’’
Concerns were expressed about researchers developing local storage solutions
for their data, ranging from the use of small-scale portable storage devices to
large-scale server-based installations. Such local solutions were seen to create risks
associated with resilience and security in particular. Some participants reported
that such developments may reflect dissatisfaction in the institution from
academics with central provision of storage. That being as it may, it was generally
agreed that storage was a high priority for Faculty:
‘‘Yes [storage] is really important. Basically, whenever we have been out to talk to
researchers, that’s the thing they have latched on to and want to talk about the
most.’’
However, the role of the library in delivering storage infrastructure was often
said to be limited with a lead being taken by the IT services department.
‘‘Storage is an important concern for our IT department at the moment as they
try and fathom out what their responsibility is going to be in the future and what
investment may thus be required.’’
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Security was also generally agreed to be an important issue, although often not
as pressing as storage. There was an awareness of the need to have provision in
place to manage personal or commercially-sensitive data appropriately and the
risks of not doing so.
‘‘Very, very important. Maybe a bit more of a problem on the list of IT guys,
‘‘How are we going to include it in our policy?’’. We have got a policy, but people
still wander about with their memory sticks full of patient data. So yes of course
that’s a big concern.’’
Awareness of the importance of security was reported to vary significantly
across the institution. In some cases, participants themselves did not regard it as a
major challenge:
‘‘It’s kind of high on the political agenda just now; however, as a real impact I
don’t think it’s going to take that much work.’’
Once again, however, this particular driver, whilst recognised to be important
for the institution, was not generally seen as central for the library except with
regard to security of its own systems, including the repository. There was,
however, some concern expressed that a number of stakeholders in the institution
did not give security of data sufficient priority.
Preservation of data was also regarded as an important issue and a driver for
action. However, there was a great deal of uncertainty amongst participants about
the practicalities of long-term preservation of research data:
‘‘Preservation is probably at the level of ‘‘It’s a good thing, but we don’t quite
know what we are doing yet’’. We certainly don’t have much experience of
preservation, and but we recognise that it’s a good thing, but there are many
issues, policy among other things, issues around preservation how long should
things be kept for.’’
However, there was an acute awareness amongst many participants of the UK’s
EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) requirement to
keep data for 10 years – something which was seen as a major challenge.
As far as the library’s involvement in preservation was concerned, the views of
many participants agreed with one interviewee who stated that preservation ‘‘is an
area that the library could and should be involved in’’. Mention was made of the
professional culture of librarians and its association with preservation and access
of content. However, amongst many participants, there was only a hazy
understanding of the requirements of digital preservation or of the scale of the
problem with regard to data, with more mention of small-scale datasets contained
in, for example, spreadsheets than of large-scale scientific data. Nevertheless, a
number of participants mentioned the complexity of the digital preservation
problem, which many reported they were only beginning to understand in any
meaningful way.
It is clear that compliance was also seen as an important issue by all
participants. The need to comply with the requirements of UK research funders,
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particularly EPSRC’s requirement for an institutional RDM ‘‘roadmap’’, had
raised awareness of RDM in the institution and driven a significant amount of
activity at policy level.
‘‘Well compliance is really important, yes that’s the whole reason we are doing it
really. I mean to comply with Research Council guidelines yes. I am not saying
the whole reason but that’s the main driver, yes.’’
The library’s involvement in responding to the EPSRC requirements varied,
with the library taking a lead in some cases. However, a number of participants
expressed uncertainty about the extent to which compliance would remain an
important driver when it was not clear the extent to which it would be monitored
by research funders or what the consequences of non-compliance would be.
‘‘I think we would be slightly relaxed about complying with research funders
depending on the consequence of not complying…we are aware that things might
change, so we don’t want to be too far ahead of the curve, otherwise we could be
doing things that turn out not to be required.’’
Whilst the issue of compliance may be recognised as important by the library or
the institution, participants reported there may be considerable variation in the
way in which it was regarded by academic colleagues.
‘‘I think the library would recognise it as an important driver but…but in terms
of actually having to comply, you will get mixed reactions from researchers.’’
‘‘That is a very important issue for the university. It is not on the minds of a lot of
researchers.’’
However, one important aspect of the design and provision of an advisory
service around research data management planning (mentioned by a number of
participants as a priority for the library) was the building-in of advice around
compliance with funder requirements. This was one aspect of a DMP service
which was seen to be an attractive service from an academic point of view.
The driver of research quality was also said to be the subject of a wide variety of
views within the institution. One participant pointed out that their institutional
RDM policy opened with the statement that high-quality research is underpinned
by high-quality research data management, and another commented that much of
the input from their Pro-Vice-Chancellor for research had focused on this issue.
However, there was some doubt about the extent to which a perspective like this
would prompt any changes within institutions:
‘‘Well you see that is actually I think where there is a certain area of doubt. I am
not completely convinced that people perceive this whole research data
management sharing agenda as being about improving data quality or research
quality, because from their point of view their research is perfectly high quality,
thank you very much.’’
Once again, this was not reported to be a priority for many academic staff:
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‘‘It is reasonably important, again it’s not necessarily something we are seeing
much demand.’’
Although often seen as important for their institutions in principle by
participants, research quality enhancement was, therefore, not seen as such an
immediate imperative as other drivers. One participant described it as an
important idea ‘‘whose time had not yet come’’ since many researchers currently
only paid ‘‘lip service’’ to it in principle. Doubt about the extent to which the
library could or should be involved in advising on the quality of research was also
expressed by participants:
‘‘Research quality, that’s more debatable for us, in terms of what a data service
would provide. We provide advice about citations, bibliometrics, impact, that sort
of thing, but we are not making judgements about the research quality. That is
something that we would leave to the departments, to the research division in
terms of putting together research proposals and so on.’’
However, data sharing, particularly in terms of making data openly accessible,
was something which most participants were more comfortable advocating. It was
clear from their responses that many participants regarded this as amongst the
most important of the contributions the library could make to RDM. Both
implicit and explicit within the comments of a large number of the participants
was the view that the sharing of data was perhaps the key driver for the library’s
involvement in RDM. Many talked at length about data sharing and the library’s
general commitment to open access (OA). In fact, there was clearly a strong link
made by many participants between RDM and open access, with the two issues
(which, of course, do overlap in the area of open data) often being conflated in
comments. A number of participants stated that organisationally the same
individual or team in the library was responsible for both RDM and OA policy
development – a fact which may have promoted the conflation in participants’
minds.
Many participants recognised that recent changes in the policy requirements of
funders encouraging data sharing gave them greater leverage in raising this issue
more widely in their institutions. Some reported support amongst senior
managers in the institution. However, although sharing may have been a priority
within the library, it was recognised that at an institutional level data sharing was
often given a lower priority than other drivers. Regarding its priority, one
participant commented:
‘‘As the library, yes. For researchers, very mixed. I am not sure that there is
anyone else in the organisation who thinks about data sharing beyond the library
and research [support], [and] some individual researchers.’’
One respondent summarised the variation in views of different stakeholders in
their institution in relation to sharing:
‘‘I think that it fits very well with the library ethos and it would be seen as an
important driver, and less so perhaps for…central research support, they would
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be more interested I think in…compliance rather than the data sharing, and I
think researchers are interested in data sharing with…research colleagues, and
enlightened researchers are more interested in the wider sharing. I think it’s
definitely important, but it may not be as an immediately gratifying a driver as
something like having really good storage for the researchers.’’
Data sharing was in particular seen to be a controversial issue amongst
academics, with significant disciplinary and personal differences highlighted. It
was reported that some academics were very negative about data sharing. In many
disciplines, it was recognised that there were few incentives for researchers to
share their research data particularly at an early stage in research cycle. Sharing
was then an issue which was generally not seen as being driven by demand from
academics, except in specialised areas. This meant that some participants exercised
caution in how they raised the issue with academics.
‘‘…when I first started talking to people about data management I was slightly
wary of making it sound like it was too much about data sharing because I just
didn’t want to get people’s backs up too early because some people’s reaction to
data sharing is ‘‘Oh no I don’t want to do that’’, and I didn’t want that to then
turn them off management per se. I mean, let’s get the stuff in the repository, let’s
manage it properly, and then we can worry about whether to make it open or
not.’’
Perceptions of the importance of the library’s role in activities such as
preserving and, particularly, sharing data are at the centre of what might be called
the ‘professional jurisdiction’ driver [8, 36]. A theme running through the
comments of all participants was the view that RDM was an important agenda
and one in which the library should play a major part. Many showed an awareness
of activities of library services in other institutions and there was clearly a
perception that in professional terms RDM was something the library ‘ought’ to
be doing. Regular coverage of RDM issues in professional fora, such as
conferences, was clearly in itself acting as a driver for at least some participants to
lay claim to an RDM role within their institutions.
Part of this role was focused on creating a ‘story’ around RDM as a coherent
concept. RDM is in fact comprised of a number of different strands of activity
which might conceivably be seen as separate (albeit related) problems and
therefore managed separately. The RDM challenge as being pursued by libraries
involves arguing (explicitly or implicitly) for the bundling of these different
strands into a single RDM agenda which should then be managed in a coherent
way. It is clear that this assumption of the coherence of the RDM agenda has come
to inform many of the activities of the participants involved in this research and
that of their library organisations and that they see their role partly in terms of
advocating such an approach.
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Factors Influencing RDM Developments
As well as describing the different aspects of RDM activity and the key drivers,
participants also identified a large number of factors which shape an institutional
RDM programme and the library’s involvement in it. These might be called
‘Influencing Factors’ since they are intervening conditions which may affect an
institutional RDM programme in a variety of complex ways including either
facilitating or constraining action. Key Influencing Factors emerging from this
research were:
N Acceptance
N Cultures
N Demand
N Incentives
N Roles
N Governance
N Politics
N Resources
N Projects
N Skills
N Communications
N Context
The first of these, the level of acceptance and prioritisation of RDM as a
coherent agenda, is related to the jurisdiction issue above. It was clear from
participants’ comments that the RDM agenda was not universally accepted in
their institutions. Some mentioned scepticism amongst colleagues from other
support departments, particularly IT services whose attention was often focused
on questions of storage and security only. Others highlighted a lack of engagement
from researchers. In either case, it is clear that this lack of acceptance would have a
major impact on the way in which an RDM agenda was formed and implemented.
In other cases, the RDM agenda may have been recognised but was given lower
priority than other key issues. For example, some participants reported difficulties
in taking forward the RDM agenda because of the priority given to the research
excellence framework (REF) exercise by research support staff and senior
academic managers such as pro-vice chancellors.
Added to this, perhaps one of the most significant challenges in implementing
institution-wide initiatives was varying cultures and consequent differing working
practices. Within any single institution there were seen to be a large number of
different cultures across different professions and academic disciplines. Any
institution-wide RDM programme, it was recognised, needs to take such varying
cultures and practices into account in the way it is designed and implemented.
Many of the participants in this study were clearly aware of this issue and
mentioned in particular disciplinary differences. Differences manifested them-
selves in the variety of forms of data being generated and ways in which it was
analysed. There were technical differences in areas such as metadata standards and
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interoperability protocols, but also in cultures around sharing and reuse.
However, in many cases, participants were clearly only just beginning to take
account of the implications of this for institution-wide RDM programmes.
Nevertheless, despite the lack of detailed solutions discussed by participants, the
importance of the issues of disciplinary differences should not be underestimated.
In many respects, it colours all of the other Influencing Factors.
One of the major challenges implicit in the remarks of many interviewees was
that the drivers relating to RDM in many cases operate at an institutional level
and are not created by user-level demand in the academic community, regardless
of discipline. Apart from data storage, it was clear from responses that demand for
RDM-related services amongst users themselves was in fact limited or absent.
Instead, participants saw the challenge as lying in persuading users to recognise the
importance of certain approaches and adopt particular practices associated with
RDM, rather than in responding to user demand. A clear understanding of where
user demand does exist and where there is a perceived need for particular services
(with or without explicit demand) is certainly therefore an important factor that
will shape ongoing RDM activity.
Where there may not be extensive user demand it was seen as essential to
identify the key factors that determine behaviours, particularly in terms of
incentives. Developing a policy, for example, which includes clear incentives for
encouraging desired behaviours, and also clear sanctions to discourage undesired
behaviours, was essential. There was clearly uncertainty amongst participants
about what such incentives or sanctions should look like at an institutional level in
relation to RDM, although the role of the requirements of external funders was
seen by many as important in shaping institutional approaches.
Linked to this, a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of
different stakeholders in institutions emerged as essential in determining the
shape and momentum of RDM activities. Just identifying all the stakeholders and
their potential roles was problematical. This applied to roles of organisational
units, such as the library or IT service, as well as individuals, such as principal
investigators or heads of academic departments. Participants reported some
uncertainty around all of these in their institutions. There was ongoing
uncertainty, for example, in institutions about whether the library was seen as a
‘natural’ place to go for research data management services, although to balance
this there was reported to be a high level of acceptance of the library being
involved at least in initial stages of RDM programmes around policy
development.
Institutional approaches to governance were also recognised to be very
important, particularly in terms of decision-making. Universities are often
characterised by governance complexity and ambiguity, meaning that decision-
making can be a lengthy and opaque process with somewhat indeterminate
outcomes. Implementing decisions widely and consistently therefore creates major
challenges. Many participants expressed frustration at the delays inherent within
University decision-making processes and also of the fact that policy decisions at
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institutional level did not necessarily result in compliance across the organisation
as a whole.
Related to this, the power dynamics within the institution particularly around
personal relationships of senior managers were often identified as being important
by participants and labelled as ‘‘politics’’. The relationship between the library
director and other senior members of staff, particularly the Pro-Vice-Chancellor
for research, Director of research support services and Director of IT services were
seen as crucial in taking an RDM programme forward. Securing the attention and
time of such individuals and their staff were seen as essential and was a consistent
feature of the interviews. As RDM activities matured, relationships between staff
in different departments below senior team level became more important and it
was here that some participants were beginning to encounter challenges.
Resources available for an RDM programme were seen as crucial. Whilst it was
clear that there was still a great deal of uncertainty about the funding and
resources required to carry out RDM activities within the institution, there was
scepticism about the extent to which new resources would be identified for such
activities. Although in some instances business cases for new funding were being
developed, most libraries were clearly operating within an environment where
efficiency was given a very high priority and gaining additional resources except
for fixed-term projects was seen as difficult. Where new staff were required by the
library or organisational restructuring was seen as necessary, this would often have
to be achieved through repurposing existing resources. Such an atmosphere
clearly constrained the scale and scope of RDM activity and services envisaged by
many participants.
In many cases, as has been observed, RDM programmes were being focused on
fixed-term project activity aiming to deliver specified outputs including policy
and guideline documentation and pilot services. These projects were often funded
by external agencies, such as Jisc, although a number of participants mentioned
internally-funded projects usually also with fixed-term funding. As well as being
efficient, these activities were often seen as a vehicle for exploring issues in a
manageable way, attempting to tame the scale and complexity of the problem
often, for example, with a particular disciplinary focus. It was, however, clear that
in the case of many institutions there was still significant uncertainty about next
steps following the completion of such projects. In a small number of cases
programmes of activity were being developed but were in the early stages. Moving
from projects to services, involving scaling up pilots and embedding policies in
everyday practices, emerged as a major challenge.
Early activity such as projects often highlighted major skills gaps in
organisations, including libraries. Skills and expertise were seen as a major
influencing factor on an RDM programme. There was, however, uncertainty
amongst participants about the skills required to carry out RDM activities. At this
early stage, many libraries had appointed project management staff but were in
the process of identifying other areas of expertise necessary to carry out RDM on
an ongoing basis. Particular areas identified included advocacy and liaison skills,
training skills, as well as technical skills. A large number of participants identified
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the importance of re-skilling existing staff to be able to operate in the RDM space.
However, in some cases, participants reported that they were planning to appoint
new staff but this would be limited to only one person or a small number of
people (often because of resource constraints). Such constraints were obviously
impacting significantly on the shape of the RDM programme being undertaken.
Whether carried out by a new RDM Officer or by other staff within the library
(such as subject librarians), communications, and particularly advocacy, were seen
as an essential part of any library involvement in RDM. Developing a
communication and consultation process in order to determine the content of
policies and guidelines and to shape the design of services was seen as essential by
participants. The library had an important role in advocacy – articulating the
importance of RDM for the institution and its various stakeholders. This could
often be achieved by the library its existing channels of communication with
particular subject communities established by subject librarians or research-
support staff. In addition, it became apparent from interviews that communica-
tion within the library about RDM was also important. On occasions, it was clear
that the views of senior library staff including the director in relation to research
data management may have been out of synchrony with those of other staff. In
some cases, following initial negotiation with partners in the University, library
directors were devolving RDM activity to their own staff without there being
sufficient clarity about what was now expected. Several such staff were
participants in the interviews and were clearly going through a process of
identifying what next steps were possible and which should be prioritised.
All of these factors affecting the shape of RDM programmes in individual
institutions were determined in part by the setting and context within which they
were taking place. Research-led institutions were clearly structuring their activities
differently from teaching-led institutions, for example. Disciplinary coverage
within institutions, varying from multi-disciplinary universities to subject-specific
institutes, was also an important factor. It was clear, as one participant put it, that
there is a ‘‘need to have an understanding of the landscape of your institution’’
and that institutional setting and context were important influencing factors in
the development of an RDM programme.
Discussion
This analysis reveals a complex picture. While libraries saw that issues around
RDM were something to which it was important to respond, their role varied
markedly. Any response would be inherently collaborative, but it was clear that
solutions developed would vary across different institutions. This is partly because
of the existence of a number of different drivers and a large number of inter-
related factors influencing how services might be created. It has been suggested
that UK institutions have been rather slow to respond to RDM by comparison
with the US in particular [9]. The picture from the data in this research reinforces
the sense of rather cautious first steps being made, not because of poor leadership
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(if anything, libraries are leading the way) but constrained by a lack of direction at
institutional level. This could have a number of explanations, not least of which is
resource limitations. To balance this, however, there was a clear view expressed by
participants that the library should be involved in a significant and sustained way
in RDM.
Combining the findings of this research with issues identified in previous
quantitative work [8], a tentative model of an RDM programme within an
academic institution has been constructed (Fig. 1). This model helps to clarify the
different issues involved in the RDM challenge identifying various layers of
activity, multiple stakeholders and drivers, and a large number of factors
influencing the implementation of any programme. The model has been created
with the library’s perspective in mind but also applies more widely across the
institution.
The model is intended to address the ‘who?’, ‘what?’, ‘why?’, and ‘how?’ of
RDM, particularly in relation to the library’s involvement. The ‘Stakeholders’ in
the model address the question, ‘Who is involved in institutional RDM?’. They
constitute the main actors in the phenomenon being analysed. The ‘RDM
Programme Components’ in the model address the question, ‘What does an RDM
programme in an institution consist of?’. They constitute the main elements of the
phenomenon itself. The ‘Institutional Drivers’ address the question, ‘Why might a
programme be carried out?’. They constitute the main causal factors of the
phenomenon. The ‘Influencing Factors’ address the question, ‘How will the
programme be shaped?’. They constitute the main intervening conditions that
affect the phenomenon.
In the model, the different components of an institutional RDM Programme
(strategies, policies, guidelines, processes, technologies and services) are shown as
logical layers of related activity, from high-level strategic planning to on-the-
ground service deployment. Between them, policies and guidelines constitute
what might be called a ‘Regulatory’ layer in the model which may often be
supported with agreed monitoring mechanisms to measure compliance. Processes
and technologies between them constitute a ‘Systems’ layer in the model – systems
which are socio-technical in nature.
The different components of an RDM Programme are shaped by a set of
Drivers which have been identified by this research: storage, security, preservation,
compliance, quality, sharing and jurisdiction. The Drivers identified in the model
are not presented in any kind of priority order; notions of priority clearly differ
amongst different stakeholders in different institutions and at different times.
However, they do move from ‘harder’ technical challenges to ‘softer’ policy and
managerial issues. The decision has, however, been made not to distinguish
between drivers that are ‘external’ or ‘internal’ to the institution. This study
suggests that all of the drivers presented here have external and internal aspects to
them with a complex set of issues and influences at play for each driver both
within a single institution and beyond.
The RDM programme components and drivers interact with a set of
Stakeholders, all of whom have a role in RDM within the institution. Typically, as
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has been seen, the stakeholders include support staff – the library, IT services, the
research support office, other support services (including records management
and legal advice functions) – and academic staff – senior university managers
(normally led by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for research, or equivalent) and
researchers in academic departments. Amongst academic staff there are a very
large number of different researchers with (depending on the institution) different
disciplinary approaches, represented in a separate layer in the model. Any
institution-wide programme needs to take these disciplinary differences into
account. The precise roles of the stakeholders and the relationships between them
will, of course, vary between institutions, although it is clear from the research
presented here that there are significant commonalities between institutions,
including the identity of the players themselves and the particular perspectives
they tend to take on RDM.
Fig. 1. A library-oriented model of institutional RDM.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114734.g001
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The implementation of an RDM Programme is affected by a complex set of
Influencing Factors which impact on and are impacted by the Programme, either
facilitating or constraining action, and influencing its character and direction.
They will influence a programme in different ways at different stages (and
therefore are not presented in any prioritised order). Each one is in its own right
an area of considerable complexity, with additional complexity derived from the
interrelationships between different Influencing Factors.
The model aligns well with previous work such as Jones, Pryor and Whyte [25],
though operating at a different level. In terms of service components, the current
model is at a higher level of generalisation: it does not deal with the specifics of
particular types of technologies and services, such as data catalogues, which are
more fully developed by Jones et al [25]. In a sense the components set out by
their model could be substituted for the ‘‘What’’ part of the model above. At that
level it should be clearer how the different professional services’ roles might be
mapped to the different types of user services, e.g. Active data storage and security
– IT; data catalogue – library; Data management planning – Research
administration; Guidance, training and support – all. However, the model
presented here deals more with the complexity of the underlying drivers and
influencing factors that could shape which types of specific service are developed
and what they might look like – with a strong acknowledgment that there could be
many different outcomes. There are again connections to Whyte’s pathway to an
RDS [27], although his work focuses on a process of designing a service, as
opposed to representing the forces at work which could drive a programme in a
particular direction or block easy progress. While it is clearly not the intention of
the authors of these previous studies to say ‘‘one size fits all’’, their approach is to
delineate current best practice thinking. The current model makes it clearer why
in practice very different patterns of support service might emerge, or indeed none
at all, because it retains a complex sense of the underlying drivers and
acknowledges the constraints on putting services in place.
In any particular RDM institutional programme it is reasonable to assume that
successful outcomes will be achieved if all of the central components identified
(strategies, policies, etc) are implemented by the appropriate stakeholders, in line
with the drivers, and taking into account the relevant influencing factors.
However, there is no single development pathway. Many institutions are evidently
formulating and documenting policies as an initial stage and following this up
with the creation of more detailed guidelines as processes and technologies begin
to be put in place. There is activity in the areas of technology development and
piloting of services. At the same time, work to identify and allocate required
resources, clarify roles and responsibilities, and enhance necessary skills
development are under way. Commonly, this is being done through project
activity, which is also enabling some advocacy to take place, but it is clear that the
scaling and operationalisation of activity remains challenging. Moreover, ensuring
that all the different components of the programme (policies, guidelines,
processes etc) are all developing at a consistent rate and with appropriate levels of
compatibility and integration is also challenging. Managing the different strands
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of activity being carried out by different actors (the library, IT services, academic
departments etc) together to form a coherent institutional approach without
unnecessary duplication or incompatibility is becoming a concern for many.
This model serves to encapsulate reported RDM activity within institutions,
and it may also act as a diagnostic tool. If an RDM programme is stalled, for
example, it may help to analyse progress against the model in order to identify
areas where little or no activity has been focused or where there is a significant
constraining influence. Approaches can then be developed to address these issues.
Of course, discussion on the questions, ‘who?’, ‘what?’, ‘why?’, and ‘how?’ begs
the question, ‘when?’. This is not been built into the model since the participants
in the research presented in this study were very uncertain about timescales.
Whilst quantitative data reported by Cox and Pinfield indicates that libraries
expect to have made significant progress in RDM ‘‘in the next three years’’ [8],
this may often be a statement of aspiration rather a summary of specific plans. The
fact that it is ‘‘early days’’ and that, apart from policy development, libraries in
particular and institutions in general are still ‘‘feeling their way’’ with RDM means
that ‘when?’ is still very much an open question.
One under-developed aspect of the model is the treatment of the way that any
initiative needs to be adaptive to the diverse disciplinary cultures of research
communities [27]. For example, it is well understood that some disciplines
already have a deeply ingrained culture of sharing data openly (physics) or reuse
of secondary data (economics); others have well-developed data management
practices, driven by the use of personal data (health sciences); still others, such as
in some of the arts and humanities, rarely even use the term ‘‘data’’. Such issues
are incorporated in but are not central to the current model. This is partly a
function of the data used to produce it: namely, librarians in the early days of
planning RDM activities, before intense engagement with research communities
around initial services. Although participants were conscious of the importance of
disciplinary differences, the ways in which these should be reflected in the detail of
institutional services was still often unclear. Data based on the perspective of other
stakeholders, such as researchers, but also other professional services, might also
lead to the model being refashioned. As has been stressed, the data reported here
are the library perspective on the issues: this viewpoint is important in itself, but it
is a partial perspective. So the model should be seen as a first tentative
formulation based on one dataset – but one that does accurately capture the
perspective of libraries on the early days of developing RDM.
At the same time, it seems plausible that elements of the model may be
generalised to apply to other institutional information-related initiatives in higher
education organisations. Whilst the specific drivers and stakeholders will differ,
the programme components and influencing factors are likely to apply in other
cases, although levels of complexity may differ depending on the specific initiative.
Initial analysis suggests that it would, for example, be applicable to the
development of an institutional open access programme in this form. Here the
development of a strategic approach to open access accompanied by appropriate
policies and guidelines, development of relevant technologies and processes, and
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PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0114734 December 8, 2014 25 / 28
provision of supporting services might be seen to be influenced by similar factors
to RDM. Furthermore, other institutional initiatives outside of the information
field also arguably follow a similar pattern. Testing the utility of this model for
other developments in HE, both information-related and other initiatives, may be
a useful area of further research.
Conclusion
Research data management is a complex issue involving multiple activities carried
out by various actors addressing a range of drivers and influenced by a large set of
factors. The analysis and modelling of developments presented in this study
contribute to the understanding of the ways in which institutions are addressing
the problem by presenting in detail the perspective of one major stakeholder
group. Whilst the analysis has focused on the activities of libraries in particular, it
illustrates more generally how different actors are adapting their roles to
participate in emergent RDM programmes. However, major uncertainties remain
in how the various stakeholders relate to each other, where strategic priorities lie,
and how socio-technical systems should best be designed to deliver value to the
organisation in particular and research community in general. Library activity,
currently concentrated in areas such as advocacy and policy development, and
moving into new areas including the support functions and creation of new
systems, still has an important element of provisionality about it. As RDM
matures in universities, further quantitative and qualitative work will be needed to
understand the shape of activities and the roles of different actors in order to
inform ongoing development.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: SP AC JS. Performed the experiments:
JS. Analyzed the data: SP AC JS. Wrote the paper: SP AC JS.
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